


The Pirate King

by jenna_thorn



Category: Firefly, Pirates of the Caribbean
Genre: Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-04
Updated: 2009-08-04
Packaged: 2017-10-05 10:52:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/40996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenna_thorn/pseuds/jenna_thorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Serenity is a pirate ship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pirate King

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the awesome women matchup challenge in fox1013's livejournal

"Give her to me. We've a surgeon."  
Pirates don't have doctors so much as carpenters and this one reeked of sawdust, sweat, and rum. His hands shook. "Do you know who she is?"  
"Aye, and the more reason to give her to me. Do you want the Pirate King to die aboard your ship or mine?"  
\---:::---  
Dinghies were too slow and the woman in her arms was light enough that most rigging could take their combined weight, so she took the high road from the Calamity, dropping to the deck of the Bella Morta because the mast was splintered, swinging to her own Serenity to land with a stagger behind the castle. Mal spun, the tails of his coat wet with salt spray and blood. He waved his hands, "Hey now, we've enough wounded of our own; we don't need more."

"We need this one, Mal. We have wounded?"

"Well, no, except Jayne dropped a … hey! We do not take prisoners…. Why do I? Dammit, Zoe. Who's the captain of this ship?" He followed her down the stairs, cursing as he also had to jump the last two. Something had come too close in the battle. The company was still pursuing pirates and the uneasy truce that had united the reef leaders weeks ago was fragmenting more and more. There had been two dozen ships in that fight, and near that many splintered in the whirlpool. Getting four captains to sail together against a convoy had been near impossible. Pirates weren't an armada, she thought. Nor even a navy. Rather the point, she supposed. Mal was blocking the door to his cabin, his hands on his hips.

"You are the captain, sir. And you are right. We don't take prisoners. Would you get the door, please?"

"Damn straight." Mal said, as he opened the door. "So she's not a prisoner?"

Her look was silent but eloquent as she laid the woman on top of the charts. A little more blood wouldn't hurt them any. River pulled the compass back hurriedly, then looked down and up at Zoe in alarm. She took off at a run. Mal leaned forward and got out two phrases that he must have learned in Singapore, then stood to face the window as River returned, towing Simon by the hand. Simon didn't curse; he seldom did, but his face was grim as he pointed to his bag and River leapt to it. She joined Mal at the window, watching through the forearm sized hole in the stern as they pulled away from the Bella Morta. She'd seen Simon dig the better part of a pulley out of Mal's back, watched him dig grapeshot out of her own gut. She didn't need to watch.  
\---:::---  
"Don't make no sense, is all, a Pirate King without a ship."

"We go needing sense made, Jayne, we won't be asking you. Pull and hold. Kaylee, that's as up as we're like to get."

"S'good enough, Cap'n. Now just hold her steady."

Zoe stood at the edge of the glow of the brazier. They'd waited until they were over the horizon from their peers to do more than what they needed to stay afloat, which meant it was past full dark, but Kaylee hated to limp, and Mal hated to make Kaylee unhappy, so here they were with the stars watching them re-pot. "Besides," Kaylee continued, "I think it's romantic."

Jayne grunted, and Mal grinned. "He's got a point, Kaylee girl. You do think everything's romantic."

"Move your hands or I'll paint 'em," she responded. "No, really. She's got access to all the sea by right of the Council, but she doesn't command her own crew. It's like some kind of philosophy statement. She's the King of all of us."

"But captain to none of us," Zoe said.

"True enough," said the stranger, a shadow against the darkness of the wood behind her. "For the ships I want have captains already." She stepped forward, the light of the brazier turning the bandage around her ribs red and the blood on it black. "Being a king is much simpler, for what need does a pirate have for a king?"


End file.
